Editors’ Note

KNPS’s “The Lady Slipper” has supplied native-plant enthusiasts across Kentucky with relative information for a long time—over thirty years. In fact, the February 2020 issue marks the newsletter’s 34th anniversary. A lot has changed over the years. What started as a typewritten newsletter distributed via snail mail eventually made the change to electronic format. During the summer of 2019, we made the switch to blog newsletter.

Articles are available as published; simply visit the blog! On or about the first of each month, subscribers will receive an email announcing the current issue that contains a short synopsis of each blog and a link. Of course, you’re invited to review the blog at any time.

Our content will maintain the same comprehensive quality you’ve grown to trust. We hope you enjoy the new format as we are excited for this transition.

Please share news and events that you think our readers would want to know. If you are interested in writing for us, our submission guidelines are simple: Contact us with a brief description of what you’d like to cover… that’s it! We’ll get back to you quickly.

Susan Harkins and Nick Koenig, Editors, ladyslipper@knps.org

One Hill In Peaks Mill Saved

By Deborah White

Betty Beshoar and Mark Roberts

Betty Beshoar and Mark Roberts always wanted to live in the country and moved to their land on Elkhorn Creek in the Frankfort area over 30 years ago. They love walking through the woods watching and hearing frogs leaping into the pond as they go by and enjoying spectacular views. Recently, they partnered with Woods and Waters Land Trust to ensure that over 57 acres of their land will be wildlands forever. Land trusts have sprung up all over the nation (there are more than a thousand) to help people interested in conserving land.

The forest on the slopes of the stream on the conserved land are covered with wildflowers in the spring. One of those wildflowers is Braun’s rockcress (Arabis perstellata), an endangered plant.

Arabis perstellata

Roughly 90% of populations of this plant worldwide are in Franklin County, Kentucky. Because of the unique geologic similarity (and historical links) to the Nashville area, a few populations of Braun’s rockcress also occur in that area. The limited range of this plant and the threats to forest health, like invasive plants and animals, make every population of this rare plant important to its long-term persistence in the Bluegrass forests. And this hill conserved in the Peaks Mill area helps.

There are 10 federally listed endangered or threatened plants in Kentucky. In addition to the rockcress, globe bladderpod is also limited to forests in the Bluegrass and has a disjunct distribution in the Nashville area. It occurs in drier more rocky forests, often on upper slopes.

Deborah White is the Director of the non-profit Woods and Trust Land Trust. You can contact her at Deb@woodsandwaterstrust.org to learn more about donating funds or property.

Wildlife in Your Garden: A book review

A bit of everything for the Kentucky naturalist

Kentuckian Karen Lanier’s Wildlife in Your Garden is a bountiful resource for Kentuckians hoping to turn their property into a wildlife heaven. This book provides an overview of how to leave the old paradigm of monoculture yards behind and cultivate your property for the benefit of wildlife—flora, fauna, and human. In the author’s own words:

“The purpose of this book is to help you reconnect with your wild side and the green space just outside your door by discovering the importance of the patch of earth that you tend and the creatures who find sustenance there.”

That’s a big promise, and Lanier delivers. This book won’t turn you into a landscaper, but it will whet your appetite for change and offer sound advice for implementing that change. Lanier encourages you to observe and learn about the surrounding ecosystem. She advises you to use natives and explains their importance in the big picture—indeed, without natives, there is no big picture. On the practical side, there’s advice on a myriad of gardening topics, from improving your soil, choosing the right plants, solving specific garden-related problems, and much more. Each page is packed with encouragement, advice, and gorgeous pictures.

Wildlife in Your Garden isn’t a step-by-step gardening manual. Rather than how-to, this book helps you see why you should—and then helps you evaluate your green space differently, so you can implement a plan for change. Lanier assures you that becoming a good steward will change your life, and that of the surrounding wildlife, for the better.

Karen Lanier, naturalist and educator, currently lives in Kentucky. She has worked as a park ranger from California to Maine in national and state parks and in wildlife rehabilitation, wildlife education, and even made a documentary on deforestation in Brazil. Lanier holds degrees in photography, foreign language, conservation studies, and documentary studies as well as a professional environmental educator certificate. She is actively involved with the Lexington, Kentucky chapter of Wild Ones.